Blacks can vote. And we have a black President. But in reality, things haven’t changed nearly enough since the Selma march 50 years ago. Back then, racism was open and perfectly acceptable to a large number of Americans. Today, racism is still perfectly acceptable to quite a few Americans, but they’ve learned to be a little less open with it.

But as the Department of Justice report on the police force in Ferguson, Missouri shows, racism is still very much alive and still very much institutionally acceptable to many companies and government organizations.

While it is true that blacks are closer to having equality, there are still a lot of places where they are treated with open hostility, prejudice, and shameful treatment.

I simply cannot believe that the events in Ferguson, documented in the DOJ report, are not perfectly acceptable in the eyes of those in power. Oh sure. Now that they’ve been caught, they’ll say the right things and perhaps make some minor cosmetic changes. But this level of racism is not terribly unusual and it doesn’t come without people in charge either encouraging it, or at the very least, turning a blind eye to it. And neither one is acceptable.